Carriage houses proving popular in West Kelowna

WEST KELOWNA - The City of West Kelowna has received numerous inquiries about what it takes to build a carriage house since making them legal last fall.

Development services manager Nancy Henderson says the city has received about 20 inquiries specific to a particular West Kelowna property with about five of those in what she terms the “pre-application” phase.

Henderson says the city issued a development permit in February for the construction of a carriage house and has one permit in the plan-checking phase from last month.

Council earlier this week approved a development variance allowing the coversion of a studio above a garage into a carriage house.

Kelowna has allowed carriage houses since the early 2000s and will consider a move next week to allow duplex ownership of houses and carriage houses constructed on oversized lots.

Henderson says West Kelowna will consider traditional stick-framed houses and modular homes as possible carriage houses but will not allow shipping container homes or mobile homes.

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OPINION Editor, This is a busy time of year, but I find it’s also a time of reflection, particularly as January marks the end of my two-year term as Chair and my 10 years serving on the Board of Interior